


Fluffy

by rosefox



Category: Addams Family - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Rescue, Autumn, Fluff, Gen, Inspired by Addams Family, Kid Fic, No harm to animals, Pets, Siblings, Trees, Trick or Treat: Treat, child characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-06 07:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16383560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosefox/pseuds/rosefox
Summary: Daisy Collins had never been to the Addams mansion before. Jim Brown usually took the calls from there; he had more experience with exotics. But Jim was on disability leave for injuries sustained while dragging a terrified four-foot-long alligator out of the sewer, and there was a plaintive little girl on the phone saying that Fluffy was up in a tree and could someone please come get her down.





	Fluffy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arithanas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/gifts).



> I couldn't resist pairing your animal rescue original fiction prompt with your Addams Family request. I hope it's true to the Addams spirit. Enjoy.

Daisy Collins had never been to the Addams mansion before. Jim Brown usually took the calls from there; he had more experience with exotics. But Jim was on disability leave for injuries sustained while dragging a terrified four-foot-long alligator out of the sewer, and there was a plaintive little girl on the phone saying that Fluffy was up in a tree and could someone please come get her down.

"What kind of animal is Fluffy?" Daisy asked, phone held between ear and shoulder as she looked around for her heavy gloves.

"We're not sure," the girl said. "But she's not venomous. She bit my brother's arm three times and he hardly swelled up at all. I was really disappointed."

Daisy found the gloves and tucked them into the pocket of her coveralls. "She likes to bite, does she? Well, I'll be very careful. Does she have fur, or feathers, or scales?" She had learned not to assume anything from the names children gave animals.

"She doesn't really—uh oh." A crashing noise came through the phone, followed by an unearthly moan that escalated to a shrill howl. "Please excuse me," the girl said politely. There was a click, and then a dial tone.

Daisy contemplated the phone for a moment. Then, since she was still holding it, she dialed Jim. Unfortunately, he was in a haze of morphine and could offer little advice. "Put a few cages in the van, different sizes," he said. "Wear your heavy jacket. Eye protection. Hope for the best."

"They wouldn't have anything really dangerous, right?" she asked dubiously. "They have kids."

Jim laughed hollowly. "Some of the things I've seen at the Addams place... you wouldn't believe me. Go see for yourself."

So she loaded the van with as many different cages as she could fit, grabbed her mask, and headed to the outskirts of town to meet Fluffy.

=====

"I see the van," Pugsley reported. He was kneeling on the window seat and peering through binoculars, which put his arm frustratingly out of Wednesday's reach. She wanted to see whether the bites had gotten infected. Uncle Fester had promised to show her how to lance them. "Someone's getting out. It's not Mr. Brown. Maybe it's the woman you talked to on the phone."

"She was nice," Wednesday said. "I hope Fluffy likes her."

Wednesday heard the bell ring and the door creak open. Pugsley jumped down from the window seat and she followed him downstairs.

"Miss Daisy Collins of Animal Rescue," Lurch intoned. 

Wednesday assessed Miss Collins. She seemed sturdy. It was hard to tell much beyond that, because she was wearing a full beekeeper's mask atop a bulky khaki jacket and canvas coveralls.

"You probably won't need all that," Pugsley said. "She only bites a little."

"Manners!" Wednesday whispered, elbowing him.

"Oh, right. Hi, I'm Pugsley Addams and this is my sister, Wednesday. How do you do?"

"Pleased to meet you," Miss Collins said. She pulled the mask off, revealing a dark-skinned face and close-cropped black hair. Her eyes were a little wide as she looked around the foyer. "This is quite a place."

"What else would it be?" Pugsley asked.

Miss Collins opened her mouth and closed it again. Flustered, she asked, "Where should I put this?"

With a silent air of long suffering, Lurch took the mask from her and hung it on the hatstand.

"Thank you for coming, Miss Collins," Wednesday said.

"You're very welcome. Can you tell me a little more about Fluffy, and show me where she is?"

"This way," Wednesday said. "Lurch, please bring the tall ladder." 

=====

Daisy followed the children back outside and around the corner of the house. The autumn breeze was brisk, and she was glad for her jacket and gloves. The impossibly tall butler trailed behind them until they passed a garden shed. He ducked inside and emerged with a twelve-foot-long wooden ladder, which he hoisted over his shoulder.

Daisy eyed the shed. It was definitely no more than seven feet wide, tall, or deep.

"Come on," the boy said. What was his name—Pugsley? And the girl was Wednesday, like the day of the week. This whole place was very peculiar.

The children were racing ahead, and the butler gave her an after-you gesture, so she stopped trying to figure out where the ladder had come from and turned her attention to looking and listening for Fluffy.

"You know," she said, catching up to Wednesday, "you never said what sort of animal Fluffy is."

"I told you, we don't know," Wednesday said. "She's really hard to see."

Daisy hated trying to get information from children. They spoke their own language. Maybe she could do it in a roundabout way... "Where did you get her? At a pet store?"

"Oh, no. Cousin Itt brought her home. My mother says we don't need to buy pets because they come find us. That's how we got Kitty Kat." The girl frowned. "But I don't know how Tristan and Isolde found us. They're fish."

"I assume Fluffy's not a fish," Daisy said, "since she's up in a tree."

"We know what fish are," Pugsley said. "If she was a fish—"

"If she _were_ a fish," Wednesday said primly.

"If she _were_ a fish, we would have told you."

"And how did she get up the tree? Did she climb? Fly?"

"Huh, I don't know!" Wednesday said, surprised. "We were playing and then Kitty Kat came into the room and scared her, so she went out the window. And then Pugsley spotted her in the tree."

She tried one more time. "Well, how do you know she's a girl?"

"How do you know she's not one?" Wednesday said.

Daisy gave up.

The back of the mansion was overgrown, to say the least. Ivy clambered up the walls and even circled one of the parapets like a snake. No mower had ever touched the lawn, which was dotted with rusted croquet hoops and patches of vivid yellow fungus. It was bordered by some vicious blackberry brambles, a stand of monkeyweed, and the most enormous mint plants Daisy had ever seen. Beyond those stood an odd assortment of trees, most sporting fine autumn foliage; Daisy spotted several that were definitely not native species. For some reason, they reminded her of distant cousins assembled for a family reunion, all quite different but mingling happily together.

Pugsley pointed. "She's up there. In the crabapple tree."

Daisy squinted up into the orange-red leaves. "I don't see anything," she said.

"That's right," Pugsley said. "Where you don't see anything, that's where she is."

Daisy stared at her. "What on earth does _that_ mean?"

The butler stepped forward and put the ladder against the tree, anchoring it with one enormous hand. "Go up," he suggested. His deep voice shook a few leaves down from the tree.

Daisy shook her head and started up the ladder, looking for... nothing.

It was a real shock when she found it. Nestled in a crook of the branches was a small patch of swirling emptiness. She couldn't precisely see the tree through it, but she also couldn't look directly at it. The air around it seemed fuzzy, as though it kept trying to fill the empty space and being pushed back. 

_Right_ , she thought. _Fluffy._

Despite having no features whatsoever, it gave the impression of being huddled and scared. Or maybe that was just what Daisy was used to from escaped pets in trees.

 _Okay, that's all this is. A pet in a tree. A very_ strange _pet in a tree, but still a pet in a tree. I've done hundreds of those. I can do this._

Remembering that it had bitten Pugsley—though she had no idea what apparatus it had to bite with—she made sure her gloves were well tucked into her sleeves. Making soothing noises, she reached out slowly and gently. She couldn't tell how to properly pick the thing up and settled for sort of scooping her hands under it and lifting it. It weighed nothing at all, and she had the sense that if she let it go, it would float in mid-air. But it stuck to her hands like a fur-rubbed balloon sticking to the wall, which made it surprisingly easy to keep hold of.

She needed a free hand to manage the ladder, so she awkwardly tucked the nothingness into the crook of her left arm. It made a high-pitched noise like a cicada being electrocuted mid-fiddle. She nearly dropped it, but recovered and made her way back down.

"Fluffy!" Wednesday exclaimed, clapping her hands. "Thank you, Miss Collins!"

"Is she okay?" Pugsley asked.

"I could not begin to tell you," Daisy said as Wednesday took Fluffy and made petting motions against it. "I've never seen anything like it before."

"Like _her_ ," Pugsley said.

"Sure, kid," Daisy said. "Like her."

Fluffy gave a little crackle in Wednesday's hands. Daisy flinched, waiting for it to explode or shock the little girl, but she beamed and said, "She's purring!"

"That's nice," Daisy said, her skin crawling. "I'm glad I could get her down for you. Just... keep her indoors, and, uh, feed her whatever she eats. And keep her away from your fish, and your cat." She tried and failed to imagine how a housecat could have scared an invisible sphere of fizzing energy.

"Kitty Kat is a lion," Pugsley informed her.

"Of course he is," Daisy said.

"Of course _she_ is," Wednesday said.

"Right, right." Daisy laughed a bit hysterically. "Well, keep her away from your pet lion, then, and your pet spider and your pet octopus and your pet ostrich too, okay?"

"We don't have an ostrich," Pugsley said sadly. "Father said no. They moult and it makes an awful mess."

Daisy decided to stop talking.

She didn't watch the butler put the twelve-foot ladder back in the seven-foot shed. She didn't eye that strand of ivy snaking across the roof to see whether it was, in fact, a snake. She didn't look in any of the mansion's windows, even though they all seemed to be looking at her. She followed Wednesday and Pugsley back to the front of the house, wished them a good day, received her mask back from the impassive butler, and drove away as fast as she dared.

=====

"I don't think she liked us," Pugsley said, watching the van tear off down the road.

"She was very nice to Fluffy, though—wasn't she, Fluffy?" Wednesday cooed.

Fluffy gave another little crackle and nestled up against Wednesday.

"What _do_ you think she eats?" Wednesday asked.

"Miss Collins?"

"No, Fluffy!"

"Oh." Pugsley thought about it as he followed Wednesday back into the house. "Probably electricity. We could try hooking her up to the electric chair."

"Oooh, good idea!" Wednesday examined Fluffy. "But there's nowhere to attach the manacles. What about if I hold her and you electrocute me?"

"Aw, why do you always have the fun part?"

"Because she's mine!"

"That's not true, Cousin Itt gave her to both of us!"

Lurch, always the peacemaker, suggested, "Take turns." The children decided this was an acceptable compromise and trooped off down to the basement.

A few minutes later, the lights in the foyer dimmed and flickered. Lurch smiled. It was nice to see Wednesday and Pugsley taking such good care of their pet.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Prinzenhasserin for attempting to save me from myself. :)


End file.
